Kith and Kill (20 page)

‘Of course. That's my next job. My sergeant here, has already given them a brief, preliminary questioning, but I want to speak to them, too.’

‘You think Dahlia's death's tied in with hers, don't you? With Sophia's?

‘The possibility had occurred to me.’

‘But why? Why would it have any connection? My Dahlia never saw anything. With me, she were, all that evening and all that night once she left them to their birthday celebrations. She didn't return to the main house for any reason. I know she didn't and so does my friend Sam Farrell. You talked to him and he said the same.’

Rafferty nodded. ‘I don't know what the connection could be. But I mean to find out.’

Twenty minutes later, with Freddie Sullivan decamped via a police car back to the unwelcoming bosom of the Egerton family, Rafferty and Llewellyn also set off in that direction. When he got there, it was to find that, of the family, the only ones around were Alice Pickford and Penelope Chapman.

‘Where's the rest of the family?’ Rafferty asked the latter.

‘Well, they're at work, of course. It is a week day. The business doesn't run itself, especially now, with my mother gone and all the things she used to deal with to be dealt with by someone else.’

‘I see. Would you please ring them and ask them to come back here?’

‘Whatever for? They can't tell you anything.’

‘Your housekeeper has been murdered, Mrs Chapman. I would have thought it was obvious why I wanted to speak to your three children.’

Penelope drew herself up. ‘Well, it's not obvious to me.
They
didn't kill her. And the business has suffered enough disruption. How we're to get ready for Fashion Week, I really don't know.’

‘How can you be sure that one of your children isn't responsible? Even though we don't yet know who killed your mother, you seem to have accepted the fact that it was extremely unlikely to have been an outsider.’

‘Unless it was Freddie? He's just killed his wife.’

Rafferty was quick to nip that thought in the bud. ‘We have no idea who killed Dahlia. Freddie's no more and no less likely than anyone else. Your children included.’

‘It wasn't them,’ Penelope said for the second time.

‘Again – how can you be so sure? Your son Adam's not been above breaking the law when it suited him in the past.’

‘I…I just know my children, Inspector. And I know they didn't kill either Dahlia or my mother.’

‘So who did? You'd say Freddie. What about Alice? What about you?’’

‘Seeing as his wife has now been murdered, I would have thought Mr Sullivan the most likely suspect.’

Rafferty smiled. ‘Or the latest grief-stricken victim? And why would he have killed your mother? I can't believe he had that much to do with her. Mrs Egerton doesn't strike me as a gardening type. Beyond being sure the garden was kept tidy I can't believe she much bothered herself with it. And Freddie's beside himself about Dahlia's murder. You should have seen him earlier. He's distraught. You're not suggesting that he was in the theatrical profession, too, like Mrs Sullivan and your mother?’

‘Of course he wasn't. Don't be ridiculous. Can you imagine Freddie Sullivan taking a Shakespearean role?’

‘He might have made a Falstaff before his wife was murdered.’ Rafferty's self-education was coming on apace. Llewellyn would be proud of him. ‘But he's not top of my list of suspects. For either murder.’

‘Oh?’ She became wary at this. ‘Who is?’

Rafferty smiled again. ‘Let's just say there are several vying for pole position.’ He had thought Penelope Chapman a woman of no purpose. But she had a purpose now. She had turned quite doughty in the defence of her offspring. His ma would have been proud of her. ‘I'll leave you to ring your children, then. Perhaps, when you've done, you could come to the study. Seeing as you're here, I might as well question you first.’

Penelope looked like she was going to say something cutting, but clearly she thought better of it, for her mouth closed and she marched out of the hall and into the drawing room.

‘Round one to me, I think,’ he murmured to a Llewellyn who had been silent during the sparring, as they made their way to the study.

‘You know, you really shouldn't go in for taunting Mrs Chapman,’ Llewellyn said as they settled one either side of the large desk.

‘Why not? I thought it was disrespectful to Dahlia Sullivan that the family didn't see her murder as reason to interrupt their busy schedules. Disrespectful to Freddie, too. They should know better.’

‘True. But I wasn't thinking of that. I was think– ‘

‘I know. I know. No need to go on. She just made my blood boil. No wonder Dahlia couldn't wait to retire. Poor bitch. It's a shame she hung around as long as she did. She wouldn't be dead now if she'd told Sophia Egerton where she could shove her fifty grand. Dahlia said herself that she and Freddie had managed to save a tidy sum. And then they had their pensions and the paid-for Spanish villa. They could have had a reasonable life without Sophia's inheritance. As it is, one of them's now dead and Freddie looks as if he wishes he was.’

Llewellyn must have judged it wiser to say no more. They sat in silence until Penelope Chapman appeared. She hadn't knocked. Rafferty supposed she saw no reason to knock in what was now, pending probate and the result of their investigation, her own house. He must make sure he found the time to explain that this room was, for the duration, still
his
property.

Llewellyn, ever the gentleman, rose and ushered her to a chair before he took a seat on one of the armchairs behind her and took out his notebook. Penelope Chapman turned to stare at him before she turned back to Rafferty. ‘Is that strictly necessary? The note-taking?’

‘Standard procedure, Madam,’ Rafferty told her. It was a line he trotted out regularly. He found it worked. Abra had told him her theatrical agency boss used a similar line with raw new clients. ‘Works in your favour, too.’

‘Really? How so?’

‘Should you wish to challenge anything, you would have the evidence of my sergeant's notebook with which to do it.’

‘Challenge anything? Why would I wish to challenge anything? I haven't done anything.’

‘’Nothing to worry about, then. Now, perhaps we can get on?’ Rafferty leaned back in his seat in as casual a manner as he could contrive. His garish tie was already loosened, his roughly-ironed shirt still creased. He hoped to encourage her to under-estimate him. It was a ruse that had worked in the past when his slovenly Colombo air had encouraged suspects to let down their guard. ‘You said you didn't have anything to do with Dahlia Sullivan's murder. Yet at the same time you insisted your children couldn't have killed her, either. According to my calculations, that leaves your auntie and the grieving widower. Would you like to choose one? Or is it to be Freddie Sullivan again?’

‘I think you might leave my aunt out of this. She's eighty-seven, for God's sake.’

‘So it's Freddie, then. Yes?’

She glared defiantly at him. ‘Yes.’

‘Tell me, Mrs Chapman, who else has a key to the Sullivans’ flat? The family must have had a spare.’

‘I suppose so. But it's no good asking me, Inspector. I have no idea where it is. My mother and Dahlia saw to things like that between them.’

‘What about your children? Would they know?’

‘I hardly think so. Why would they know? They don't even live here.’

‘Perhaps they'd taken a little trouble – a very little trouble – to find out.’

‘And why would they do that? I've already told you that they killed neither their grandmother nor Dahlia. They had no reason to.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘And what about the little matter of Adam's pressing gambling debts?’

‘A paltry sum, I'm sure.’

‘Three grand's not a paltry sum. Not when you haven't got it. And Adam hadn't.’

‘How do you know he hasn't got it?’ Then she twigged. ‘You've been checking my son's bank account. How dare you?’

‘I'm investigating one, no,
two
murders. Of course I dare.’

‘And what could my son have hoped to gain from Dahlia Sullivan's death?’

‘So you don't deny that he hoped to gain from your mother's?’

‘I said nothing of the sort. You're twisting my words. To return to what I
did
say. You're hardly suggesting that Adam stood to gain from Dahlia Sullivan's will?’

‘No.’

‘Then why would he kill her? Why would any of the family. I doubt the woman would have left us anything. She didn't even see fit to invite us out to her Spanish villa.’

Would you blame her? Rafferty thought. When after years of service, she was reduced to ‘the woman’. But it was clear he would get nothing incriminating from Penelope Chapman. Not unless he tried bowling her a googly. ‘How's your boyfriend? His money problems any better?’

‘What?’ Her gaze swivelled as though seeking a way out. ‘What–what do you mean?’

‘What I said. I know you have a boyfriend. I know his business is in trouble. Wanted to help him, did you?’

‘Well yes…yes, of course. I'm fond of him. Naturally I'd like to help him if I could.’

‘Even though he has a wife?’ But I forgot. You didn't know he had a wife until recently, did you?’

‘No.;’ Her voice was a little shaky now. ‘No, I didn't.’

‘In fact you didn't know about his wife until after your mother's death.’

Her gaze narrowed. ‘Who told you that?’

‘It doesn't matter. It's true, though, isn't it?’

She shrugged. ‘I suppose so, yes. What difference does it make
when
I found out?’

He didn't answer her. He just left her to draw her own conclusions. He didn't want her asking for Llewellyn's notebook. He'd need it himself. But it was good that she'd admitted she had a boyfriend, that he had debts and that she had only found out he had a wife
after
her mother's murder. Progress. At last. He wanted to savour it. ‘Thank you for your time, Madam. Perhaps you'd be kind enough to ask your aunt to come in?’

She went out, lips pursed up tight, without another word.

Either she failed to pass a speedy message on to her aunt or Alice Pickford took her own sweet time in arriving. But a good ten minutes elapsed before she appeared.

‘I was having my pre-lunch nap,’ she complained as soon as she came through the door. ‘A woman of my age needs her sleep, young man.’

‘Sorry about that Miss Pickford. I shouldn't need to keep you long. If you'd like to sit down.’

‘This is my home, so of course I'd like to sit down. Or would you prefer to interrogate me while I struggle to stand upright?’

Rafferty said nothing further until she had deigned to thump her behind down on the hard chair in front of the desk. ‘Perhaps you'd care to tell me how you spent last night?’

‘Last night? I spent it in my bed, of course. How else would I spend it?’

‘Tell me, do you know where the spare key to the Sullivans’ flat was kept?’

She stared at him out of rheumy blue eyes. ‘The key to their flat? I've no idea. I imagine my sister had it stowed somewhere. Why do you ask?’

Rafferty spelled it out. ‘Because Mrs Sullivan was murdered. In her bed. In her locked flat. Sometime last night.’

‘It'll be that Freddie. Never liked him. Something shifty about him. And flirted with anything in a skirt. He even tried it on with
me
, but I soon put him in his place.’ Rafferty just bet she had. ‘You'll have arrested him?’

Rafferty had to give it to the old girl, for all she was a Barnardo's brat, she didn't lack gall. Not even a pretence of empathy for the grieving Freddie. He sighed. But why would he expect anything else from any of this family. They seemed selfish to the core.

‘Just as well, perhaps’ she went on. ‘That you've arrested him, I means. As he'd have had to leave that flat anyway. We'll want it for the new housekeeper.’

‘No, Miss Pickford. I haven't arrested Mr Sullivan. Nor do I intend to.’

‘Why ever not? It's always the husband. Everyone knows that.’

’For the simple reason that I don't believe he killed his wife.’ Rafferty no longer found the old woman's gall even moderately admirable. He thought her a spiteful old witch who, in another age, would have made good fodder for one of the Witch Finder General's fires.

‘He'll have given you some sob story, I don't doubt. He was always one for turning things to his own advantage. Look at how he got a comfortable flat here.’

‘I thought that came with the job.’

‘It's always been the housekeeper's flat.’

‘Well, he was married to the housekeeper.’

‘ Hrmph. Did well for himself when he married Dahlia.’

‘You're not suggesting–‘ He didn't bother to finish. But it was obvious what she was trying to say. Did she really believe that Freddie had only married Dahlia for a poky, one bed flat? The idea was so ridiculous he didn't even bother to challenge her. He let her go. Anyway, he'd heard the rest of the family return. And it was Adam he really wanted to speak to.

‘Ask Adam Chapman to step in, please,’ he said to Alice Pickford as she made her way to the door.